The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is partnering with the Facebook Journalism Project to train thousands of journalists across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on using social media to support quality journalism.
Participants in the Social Media Solutions program will learn practical skills in four key areas: verification, security, engagement and storytelling. Expert trainers, local to the region, will teach participants how to identify fake accounts, secure their digital footprint, and involve audiences in the news gathering process, among other critical skills.
About the Program
The program will offer in-person workshops and online courses in Arabic to 2,500 participants from the region. Trainers will hold in-person workshops in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Online courses will be available to journalists from the above-mentioned countries as well as journalists across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The program’s curriculum will focus on four modules, which will teach the journalists:
- Best practices to verify online content and separate fact from fiction
- Safety and security measures that they should take to protect their online information and communications
- How to build a rapport with audiences and establish a loyal following
- How to create content for news reports using social media
The need for digital and social media training is acute. A recent ICFJ study, the State of Technology in Global Newsrooms, found that nearly 70 percent of newsrooms in the Middle East and North Africa regularly use social media to post stories, but only 41 percent use it to engage audiences. Around half of journalists in the region take no measures to secure their online presence. Globally, just 11 percent of respondents said they are using social media verification tools.
How to Apply – Webinar
Do you want to learn more about tools journalists can use for verification and storytelling? Join us for our upcoming webinar on Tuesday, August 20!
This two-hour webinar conducted entirely in Arabic will focus on using specific case studies to highlight tools journalists can use in their daily reporting.
Registrations are now open! Please click on this link to register. Deadline to register is Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
The webinar will be held on Tuesday, August 20, 2019.
Other Program Activities
If you are interested in attending an in-person workshop, the next workshop dates are below:
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: July 13 and 14, 2019
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: July 20 and 21, 2019
Dubai, UAE: September 5 and 6, 2019
Abu Dhabi, UAE: September 7 and 8, 2019
